As technology advances, it has become increasingly possible and economical to place various computer peripherals onto a single chip known as a microcontroller. These peripherals may include items such as serial ports, memories, central processing units, timers, parallel ports, etc. Thus, where a customer has a particular implementation in mind, the customer may seek a single chip microcontroller having various peripherals in order to perform a particular function or functions. It is common in the industry for such a customer to enlist the assistance of a designer/manufacturer in producing and customizing these microcontrollers.
The overall time frame involved in producing a finalized end product microcontroller commonly spans on the order of eighteen to twenty-four months. The process is typically broken down into two phases. In the first phase, a first version of the microcontroller having a field programmable memory is designed, constructed, and provided to the customer. The field programmable memory microcontroller typically takes six to twelve months to develop and deliver to the customer. The field programmable memory of the first phase microcontroller permits the customer to modify the program code within the memory in order to test, develop and debug that program code. Once the customer has finalized the program code, he returns that information to the manufacturer so that the end product microcontroller may be created in the second phase.
In the second phase, the manufacturer takes the information provided from the customer and redesigns an entirely new end product microcontroller. The end product microcontroller includes a permanent memory such as a read-only memory (ROM) for holding the program code previously tested, developed and debugged by the customer. Because the permanent memory is commonly different in physical size than the field programmable memory of the first phase device, the creation of the end product device entails all the steps previously required during the first phase development. As a result, the process of phase one is duplicated in phase two and another nine to twelve months are required before the end product can be delivered to the customer. Thus, it may be appreciated that under the current system for customizing microcontrollers, a customer may wait on the order of two years prior to being able to put his ultimate microcontroller into use in the marketplace. Therefore, a need has arisen for a methodology and resulting apparatus which provide a more efficient process, and a reduced production time for creating and customizing a microcontroller which may be sold in the marketplace.